What a Kicking Coach Actually Does (And What You Should Demand From One)

Walk into a real kicking session and the first thing you notice is what is missing: there is no lecture. A good coach talks for about thirty seconds, then shuts up and watches. That ratio — short instruction, long observation, precise correction — is the actual job. A lot of athletes and parents think a kicking coach is someone who knows secrets about technique. After years of doing this, I can tell you the secrets are mostly boring, and the real value of a coach lives somewhere else entirely.

Let me walk you through what the work actually looks like, so you can judge whether the person you are paying is doing it.

The Anatomy of a Real Session

A quality session has a shape, and the shape repeats no matter who is running it:

• First 10 minutes: observation, not teaching. The coach watches your normal reps before saying almost anything. Correcting a swing you have not seen is guessing with a whistle.
• One cue, not seven. Then a single change — a plant spot, a swing path, a tempo instruction — and a block of reps to let your body try it. Feedback arrives in doses your body can actually absorb.
• Film, immediately. Not a film session next week. Phone out, rep shown, frame paused, one sentence about what changed. The gap between feeling and reality closes only when you see both in the same minute.
• Charting. Distance, direction, contact quality, operation time, written down. If nobody is recording anything, nobody can tell whether today’s “feel” was progress or noise.
• A measurable change by the end. You should leave with one correction you can reproduce alone tomorrow, and you should be able to state it out loud. If you leave with five tips and no notes, you bought entertainment.

What Feedback Quality Actually Looks Like

Here is my honest test for feedback quality, and you can run it on any coach: does the instruction connect a cause to a result you can see? “Stay through the ball longer and watch your contact get cleaner” is coaching. “Great job, keep working hard” is not. The difference matters because your practice between sessions is where improvement actually happens, and vague feedback does not survive the trip home.

Good coaches also tell you when you are wrong about your own kick. You will swear a miss was your contact when the film says your plant foot landed twelve inches open. Being corrected on something you did not want to hear is one of the most valuable things you will ever pay for — and a coach who never contradicts you is selling comfort, not coaching.

What You Should Demand From One

A plan with phases

Not “we will work on your swing.” Which part of the swing, in what order, over how many weeks, with what evidence that it worked. A coach who cannot sketch a plan on a napkin in ninety seconds does not have one.

Homework you can do alone

Every session should end with two or three drills you can run without him. The best coaching makes itself unnecessary between sessions — that is the entire point. If your improvement depends entirely on the paid hour, the hour is doing all the work and you are doing none.

Honesty about the ceiling

Run away from anyone promising you a specific number of yards. Range comes from technique, speed, contact and time, in that order, and no honest coach can promise you fifteen yards by October. What an honest coach promises is a correct diagnosis and a plan. The yards show up when the mechanics earn them. My fuller take on choosing a coach, including costs and remote options, is in finding a kicking coach near you or online.

Evidence over vibes

Ask how progress gets measured. Charts, operation timings, video comparisons from week one to week six. If the answer is “you’ll feel it,” you are paying for a feeling.

The Types You Will Meet

The coaching market has more shapes than people expect — private specialists, former pros, YouTube-first coaches, team consultants — and each type is good at something different. Before you spend money, know who you are actually hiring: the different types of kicking coaches lays out the landscape, and if you are curious why even NFL kickers keep coaches, why the league needs them answers that directly. Even at the highest level, an outside set of eyes is the difference between guessing and knowing.

The Fit Matters More Than the Résumé

One honest note from my side of the table: coaching is a fit, not a product. Two excellent coaches can be wrong for the same athlete, because communication style matters as much as knowledge. You want someone whose corrections you can hear — someone who makes you feel like the work is possible, not like your swing is a crime scene. And you want someone who is honest enough to tell you what he does not know.

Remote coaching deserves a mention here, because it confuses people. Film-based coaching works — arguably better than in-person work for diagnosis, because video does not flatter anybody and the review can be frame-by-frame. What remote coaching trades away is live hands-on adjustments and the energy of a session, so it suits kickers who can already run their own practice and need diagnosis more than supervision. Younger kickers, or kickers whose practice habits do not exist yet, usually get more from in-person sessions first. Match the format to the athlete, not to the coach’s convenience.

If that sounds like the relationship you are looking for, I do one-on-one coaching here — film-based, chart-driven, and built around the same principles in this post. And whether you train with me or anyone else, hold every coach, including me, to the list above. The session you pay for should leave you with a correction you can name, a drill you can run, and a number that proves it worked.